The invention relates to a device for delivering a stream of a defined, adjustable quantity of viscous liquid.
The corn earworm is a pest that plagues corn, e.g., sweet corn, crops throughout the United States. The larvae enters ears of corn through the silk channels at the neck of the ear and causes serious injury to the ear. Currently, corn earworms and other pests such as corn borers, fall armyworms, and other ear-invading caterpillars that infest sweet corn are controlled by repeated applications of insecticides that have broad toxicity to mammals, birds, and beneficial insects throughout the period of ear development, which lasts two to three weeks. In many areas, such use of insecticide is highly undesirable.
Recent emphasis on sustainable and organic farming practices among corn-growers has brought about an alternative method of controlling such pests, i.e., the use of oil, which is a natural product, to protect the corn. Oil applied directly to the silk acts as a barrier to prevent entry of the larvae of earworms into the corn ear, and also kills larvae already within the ear.